Kevin Frisch: Conservative media has advantage over Olbermann

Monday

Jan 24, 2011 at 12:01 AMJan 24, 2011 at 4:54 AM

An online commenter said: “Olbermann and (fellow MSNBC host Rachel) Maddow aren’t leaning to the left ­­–– they are raving far-left liberals.” Raving or not, Olbermann signed off for the last time Friday. His departure doesn’t change the balance, or tip the scales vis a vis liberal vs. conservative media; the latter continues to enjoy a hefty advantage.

Kevin Frisch

There was an excellent game-show satire on “Saturday Night Live” back in the 1980s — a Jeopardy-type contest called “Common Knowledge.” Steve Martin played the host and Nora Dunn portrayed increasingly exasperated contestant Jeane Kirkpatrick:

Jeane Kirkpatrick: History.

Steve: Alright! History, for $100: His assassination sparked World War I.

Jeane Kirkpatrick: Archduke Ferdinand. (Buzzer!)

Steve: Oh, sorry! The answer is Lincoln... Abraham Lincoln.

The rules? “Questions for our show are selected by educators from Princeton University to express a broad range of common knowledge that every American should possess,” explained Steve. “Answers for ‘Common Knowledge’ are determined by a nationwide survey of 17-year-old high school seniors.”

I was reminded of this sketch while reading over online comments in response to my column last week. The posters eventually got onto the topic of whether the media is overwhelmingly liberal or conservative.

It’s one of the many questions on which modern-day conservatives and non-conservatives disagree.

Conservatives will allow Fox News tilts right, but insist the rest of the media — “NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN and PBS,” as one online commenter listed them — are liberal.

For non-conservatives, Fox doesn’t just tilt rightward; it lists at something like 75 degrees. The rest of the media is far closer to center, with a few exceptions.

But “the liberal media” has been drummed into our heads so relentlessly and effectively these past two decades, it has become “Common Knowledge” — with just as little factual support as the answers on that SNL parody.

“We get it,” wrote Bruce Edward Walker of the Heartland Institute in an essay last month. “Fox leans right and most other outlets tilt left.”

(Buzzer!) False, Mr. Walker.

Fox leans right — and conservatives have successfully spread the big lie that the mainstream media leans left to justify the Fox agenda. It’s convenient, it has even become ‘common knowledge,’ but it isn’t the case.

There are some examples of a true liberal media, no doubt. The New York Times editorial page is proudly so. Garrison Keillor’s “Prairie Home Companion” is probably the most subversive liberal program out there, presenting, as it does, a left-wing ideology enmeshed in other liberal values: home, community, church, song and celebration. And, until Friday night, MSNBC’s “Countdown with Keith Olbermann” showed what a true liberal news and opinion program looked like.

After years of conservative examples of liberal media consisting of arguments like, “Dan Rather raises his right eyebrow whenever he mentions George W. Bush,” a robust and enthusiastic liberal telecast seemed to be off the charts.

Again, from an online commenter last week: “Olbermann and (fellow MSNBC host Rachel) Maddow aren’t leaning to the left ­­–– they are raving far-left liberals.”

Raving or not, Olbermann signed off for the last time Friday. His departure doesn’t change the balance, or tip the scales vis a vis liberal vs. conservative media; the latter continues to enjoy a hefty advantage. But it takes just a little more weight out of assertions that the mainstream media are liberal.

That doesn’t mean the claims won’t still be made. We’ve heard it before and we’ll hear it again: “the liberal media.” After all, it’s common knowledge.

Messenger Post managing editor Kevin Frisch’s column appears each Sunday in the Daily Messenger in New York. Contact him at (585) 394-0770, ext. 257, or via email at kfrisch@messengerpostmedia.com.

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